


honestly destined to fall

by brookethenerd



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:06:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22569850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookethenerd/pseuds/brookethenerd
Summary: Nancy breaks up with Steve, and the reader tries to comfort him
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Reader, Steve Harrington/You
Kudos: 42





	honestly destined to fall

Being the DD at a party is the equivalent of babysitting a hundred drunk toddlers. Despite entering with the intentions of only keeping an eye on the two friends you came with, you spend the first hour holding up girls who are too intoxicated to stand and shuttling cups of tap water to anyone too drunk to get it themselves. Your friends both find their way to their boyfriends, dragging them to bedrooms and past you with a, “ _I don’t need a ride home but thank you, you’re amazing_ ,” leaving you frustratingly sober as the party reaches its peak and begins to tip.

Gossip travels faster than light through the house, and you hear about the argument between Nancy and Steve in the bathroom before Steve even comes down the stairs, his features forcibly even, the pain brimming in his eyes. He pushes through the crowd and to the front door, stumbling out into the dark night. Nancy goes the opposite direction, Jonathan right on her heels, guiding her toward the back door.

You follow Steve, slipping through the throng of warm bodies and out onto the porch, the door slamming shut behind you cutting through the loud music. The cool night air is a welcome relief, and you take in big breaths as you scan the lawn, searching for Steve.

Steve Harrington isn’t your best friend; hell, he’s barely even your friend. But the heartbreak in his eyes as he moved through the house was impossible to miss if you knew what to look for; you’ve been hurt enough to recognize it in someone else. And heartbreak and alcohol are a dangerous combination.

“Harrington!” You jog after him, easily catching up to the stumbling, tipsy eighteen-year-old. He slows at your arrival, but his face doesn’t lose its twisted expression. The pain bleeds from his features, and he’s like a live wire, buzzing with emotion, shoulders hunched, hands trembling.

“What do you want?” He snaps.

“I saw-” you stop at the tightening of his features, “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. He is _very_ clearly not fine; he’s swaying, and his hair is a raked-through mess, and you can smell the alcohol on him.

“You’re not.”

“What do you care?” He throws his arms out dismissively, but the movement is made awkward and clumsy by the intoxication. He’s swallowed so much sadness his words slur, and he’s clearly a ticking time bomb. You just hope you can diffuse him enough to get him home, let him sleep it off.

“I know something happened,” you say, “and I’m not asking you to talk about it. But I can’t just let you wander through the streets drunk off your ass. I don’t want to drive past you flattened on the asphalt like a squirrel when I head to school on Monday.”

“I don’t need your help.” He tries to take a step, but loses his balance, and has to steady himself on a random parked car. You reach out to help, but he sidesteps, narrowly avoiding your grip. “M’fine.”

“Steve, just-”

“Just go. Leave me the hell alone,” he snaps.

“I’m not doing that.”

“It’s bullshit,” he interrupts, meeting your gaze with a fierce intensity. “It’s all just…bullshit.”

“What is?”

“ _Everything_. This school. These people. Me. You. _Everyone_. _None of it_ matters.”

“That’s not true,” you say, touching his arm. He lets out a sharp exhale and leans back against the random car. You step off the sidewalk into the grass and drop down onto one of two stumps. After a beat, Steve pushes off the car and sits beside you.

“What do you care?” He asks again. “Nancy doesn’t. My parents don’t. My friends-” he laughs bitterly, waving a hand, “those people. No one cares. And why should they?”

“You’re a person. And that alone makes you worth caring about.”

“You don’t know me,” he says.

“No,” you say. “But I know you well enough to know you don’t deserve this. No one deserves this. I know how it feels.”

He leans his forearms against his knees, chin ducked, hair hanging over. For a moment you think he’s going to puke, but he stays there, motionless.

“I know it feels like…the biggest pain in the world. So big you can’t breathe around it. And you don’t know where to put it down, what to do with it. You think you’ll…come apart. But you won’t,” you say, nudging Steve’s sneaker with your own. He lifts his head, holding your gaze. “It’s a big fucking risk to care about someone. And even if it didn’t work out, you’re still braver than most of us for trying.”

“ _Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all_ ,” Steve parrots, tone mocking. You can’t help but snort a laugh. “Fucking cliche.”

“The thing about cliches,” you say, “is that a lot of them are true.”

Steve sighs and rakes a hand through his hair, mussing it up even further, his expression pained.

“God, _I just_ -” he huffs. “I want to throw up, and scream, and cry, and… _kick_ something.”

“You can do three of those things. Though, the screaming might attract neighbors.”

His lips quirk up for a moment, but the smile falls just as quickly. His eyes glaze over, and he visibly fights back the tears.

“I should have seen it coming. I mean, God knows I’m not the best boyfriend in the world, but…I didn’t think…” he trails off, face scrunching up with the effort to keep his tears at bay. You shift to the edge of the stump and wrap an arm around his shoulder. The touch makes him crumple, and he turns into you, an arm slipping around your waist. His shoulders shake with silent sobs, and you can feel the moisture blooming against your collar, but he makes no sound. You wrap your arms around him and hug him tightly, holding on until his body goes still, and long after.

“I’ve got you,” you murmur against his hair, hands working gentle circles between his shoulder blades, drawing the tension out of him. “I’ve got you.” It’s surely an absurd sight; one drunk teen and one sober, crying on a tree stump at eleven o clock at night, but you don’t care what the cars that pass think; you care about the sad boy in your arms. The snarky, confident king of Hawkins High, reduced to a sad little kid. Maybe no one was like anyone thought they were; maybe everyone had an outer persona as falsely constructed as yours, as Steve’s.

“I don’t know what to do,” he mumbles, so soft you can barely hear him. He clings to the fabric of your jacket like its a lifeboat and he’s drowning; you hold him like you’re afraid he’ll suffocate if you let him fall.

“You’ll figure it out,” you assure him. “And you don’t have to be alone when you do.”

He lifts his head and leans it against your shoulder, one hand loosely gripping your jacket. The scent of alcohol wafts off him in waves, but it’s mixed with aftershave and the smell of the woods behind you, not all that unpleasant.

“You shouldn’t be helping me,” he says half-heartedly.

“Oh, shut up,” you reply. “You can thank me later. When you’re sober and more appreciative.”

This earns a tiny smile, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes; you’ll take what you can get. It’s a game of Sisyphus and the boulder; one day, eventually, the rock will stay at the top of the hill. Until then, he’ll push and push and push and watch it fall and fall and fall. One day, it won’t anymore. One day, the boulder will be a pebble, and its weight won’t be enough to drag Steve down anymore. And you’ll be beside him when it does.


End file.
